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Speed limiter on my uncle's very elderly Land Rover. Driver's door used to open itself above 45 mph. Meant you never went fast enough to worry about the indecisive steering and the near-imaginary brakes.
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Speed limiter on my uncle's very elderly Land Rover. Driver's door used to open itself above 45 mph. Meant you never went fast enough to worry about the indecisive steering and the near-imaginary brakes.
Message for your uncle, i had a dickens of a job getting a good brake pedal on a series LR, bled for hours to no avail.
Experimented, removed all drums, clamped the shoes together with G clamps but any method of preventing the slave cyl pistons from moving will do, ie jubilee clips, bleeding after that was immediate and produced the best most solid brake pedal i've ever found on a LR.
I have no answers for the steering however, which is best described as vague :-)
Edited by gordonbennet on 15/02/2018 at 09:44
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Audi A8 - rear window blind, useful when tailgated by bullyboy SUVs with high set bright lights. Also, separate central armrests, for each front seat, individually adjustable.
Mk1 Ford Focus - heated windscreen. Not seen much on other makes, has been a boon this winter.
Triumph TR7 - pop-up headlamps. Just a bit of fun really - neat way of saying 'thank-you' when given way, etc.
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Triumph TR7 - pop-up headlamps. Just a bit of fun really - neat way of saying 'thank-you' when given way, etc.
I've seen a couple with eyelashes added....
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I had an Almera with the curry hook. Never used it...
Growing up we had two 7-seat Volvo 240 estates. You could open the tailgate from the inside with a handle. 740s/760s had it too, it wasn't just a feature for the 7-seat versions. Not seen it elsewhere - maybe the big Mercs had it, or some US station wagons?
Never owned one but the mid-90s Toyota Camry estate had two rear wipers
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Both our cars have indicators - a feature not fitted to most Audis or BMWs.
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Cornering lamps - you slow to less than 20 mph and indicate and a white light comes on from the side of the headlamp assembly, illuminating the entrance or side road you are about to turn into.
Very handy in pitch-black rural France in the winter
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A fanatical local group of insect spotters reported being hugely impressed by the sound of the most feeble horn ever fitted to a motor vehicle (my 2016 Toyota Auris), which replicates the mating call of the caddis fly, and was once picked out clearly a full metre away from the front bumper.
Edited by Bilboman on 16/02/2018 at 01:57
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Electric rear window blind on Mercedes CLK; very useful when being tailgated. Use the screen and the errant driver can’t see through the car and they back off.
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Electric rear window blind on Mercedes CLK; very useful when being tailgated. Use the screen and the errant driver can’t see through the car and they back off.
Had a pull-cord operated one on a 1950 MG saloon, could do with one now to cut out headlights of tailgating 4 x 4 s
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Electric rear window blind on Mercedes CLK; very useful when being tailgated. Use the screen and the errant driver can’t see through the car and they back off.
Had a pull-cord operated one on a 1950 MG saloon, could do with one now to cut out headlights of tailgating 4 x 4 s
My 1929 Riley Monaco fabric bodied saloon had one...
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Hill holder system. Yes, many cars now have this but mine is mechanical and came way before the electronic gizmo's. Operates on a hill when the footbrake is on with the clutch down. Come off the footbrake and the car doesn't move. Absolutely brilliant.
Heating element along the bottom of the windscreen behind the wipers to de ice them. The rear heating element also has a strategically placed zig zag line behind the rear wiper.
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Hill holder system.
Seen this on a turn of the century car. Consisted of something like a long crowbar pivoted at its front end and held up by a cable at the back. Drop it going up a hil and it would drag along until you stopped and then dig in if you rolled back. Pull away, then haul on the cable and lock it up.
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Hill holder sytem.
That's really funny!
All UK driving instructors teach moving off on a gradient, both forward and reverse using handbrake and clutch control as a basic skill for the UK driving test!
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Corax doesn't say what kind of car, but i'm wondering if it is a Subaru. I know they had a hill holder system at least as far back as the early 80's. As well as a rudimentary system for raising the ride height by going underneath with an appropriately sized spanner!
Another thing from the past i realy like is opening quarter lights, i had them in my 1985 Lada 1600. A great way of getting fresh air into the car without the buffeting or getting wet if it is raining.
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Oh yes, I have fond memories of opening quarter-lights: my first three cars (Austin A50, MG 1100, MG 1300) had them. Excellent on wet or cold days for keeping the windscreen clear, and on a hot day you could turn them right round and get a terrific blast of cool air on your face.
Ref. Bilboman's post - every Japanese car I've driven has had a feeble horn. Maybe the Japanese are so polite that they never use their horn, so it's fitted just as a legal requirement? Fortunately for our purposes (especially blind bends on country lanes) the Germans are rather less polite.
Edited by Avant on 17/02/2018 at 00:12
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Oh yes, I have fond memories of opening quarter-lights......
......if we are going historical, so do I. My father's Rovers (105S and 2000TC) had these. The 105S also had a starting handle, one of the last cars to have one. But cranking a twin carb 2.7l six cylinder was not easy!
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A long time ago I had a 1966 S-Type Jaguar which had quarter lights. I remember one day when all the locks had frozen, we managed to pry open one of the rear quarter lights from the outside and then unlock the doors from the inside. Not very secure!
One of my favourite features of that car was the vacuum powered scuttle vent which used to gracefully open itself just after the engine had started.
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Corax doesn't say what kind of car, but i'm wondering if it is a Subaru. I know they had a hill holder system at least as far back as the early 80's. As well as a rudimentary system for raising the ride height by going underneath with an appropriately sized spanner!
Yes, a Subaru Forester bbd. I didn't know about the ride height adjuster, interesting.
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Don't get too exited about the suspension corax, i doubt the forester would have that, especially since it has a decent amount of ground clearance anyway. No i think the adjustable suspension would have been on the subaru leone up to the 2nd generation which was replaced in around 1984 though two versions of the 2nd generation continued a bit longer. Those being the 3 door hatch, which is what i had, and the 'brat' pickup.
Early subaru's had some interesting and innovative features, but they were generally quite crude. The 4wd system for example, could not be used on the road, at least not in the dry, as it simply locked the drive to all 4 wheels!. And the adjustable height system symply levered the suspension arms down, so your ride height increased, but at the same time, the track got narrower!. Again, this would not be a good combination on the road, but for the farmers these early subaru's were aimed at, this would have been just grand for getting across a muddy field!.
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My wife loves the vanity mirror light (behind the visor). She often switches it on at dark for doing make up (when I'm driving) :-(
I am thinking of taking the bulb out on next servicing :-p
Edited by movilogo on 18/02/2018 at 08:59
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Ever since I could walk, I'd always been fascinated by gadgets on cars, especially little lights everywhere, and would always toddle around a relative's car to find them all, given half a chance. The excitement when my dad had his first car with an illuminated glovebox! And successive cars my dad and later I owned would have lights for the boot, bonnet, ashtrays... even an arc of light around a cupholder. What decadence!
Among the more useful lighting features was the provision of backlit column stalks on my 1984 Montego: neat little symbols powered by the cleverly incorporated fibre optic threads to remind the driver where to find wipers and flashers. Must have been useful for car hire customers back in the day. I can't recall seeing this feature on any other car since then.
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I'll also stake my claim for a uniquely feeble horn. As mentioned on another thread, mine is so pathetic that it would struggle to shake the cups at a Liliuptian tea party.
However, the thing I'm so far most proud of on my Jazz is the secret compartment under the back seat. Lift the seat in magic mode, turn two buttons and there's a place big enough to take an A4 jiffy bag. No room to put anything IN the jiffy bag, but beside the point.
Damn, just realised: its not "secret" any more.
Edited by argybargy on 18/02/2018 at 22:52
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